It's that time of year when people do the holiday/festival thing! If you've been to a festival and learned a tune at a workshop, why not post a version of it here? The act of playing and recording it will fix it in your repertoire, so it's well worth doing - otherwise these tunes have a habit of getting forgotten. Also this month is a good opportunity to polish up that tune you heard in a session, or simply wanted to learn and haven't got round to it yet!

There are at least a half-dozen distinct divisions of polska with myriad stylistic variants under the main groupings, the variations coming from the local dance steps. By and large, polska refers to the dance(s) and the music follows. The original uuse of the term polska (Polish) referred to the advent of couples dancing. Prior to that the village social dances were primarily line dances, ring dances and/or some form of quadrille.

It's a very deep and rich body of music whose bug bit me back in '78. I moved to the border region between Sweden and Norway soon after to soak it up first hand and experience the music in its social context. The salient feature of most forms of polska is the rhythmic pulse of 3-1, 3-1 rather than the Teutonic 1-2-3, 1-2-3...the beat comparing to the rhythm of the beating heart. It is an ancient pulse which has been traced along the path of Celtic migration into Europe through Spain, France, British Isles and on across Scandinavia. The remnants can be found in Galician music and even in South America where the indigenous peoples incorporated Spanish influences into their music. The rhythm is referred to as "corazon", another example of the heartbeat reference.

For those with enough time and interest, Jan Ling has written a book entitled "A History of European Folk Music". Professor Ling teaches at the University in Göteborg, Sweden. And for exemplary diatonists, search for Markku Lepistö and/or Erik Pekkari.

I have to say that Saul's polska felt more like a 3/2 hornpipe than a 3/4 tune to me. Is the music for a Scandinavian 'Polish' the same as a Polish mazurka? I thought I had the pulse of a mazurka worked out but seemingly not since finding out that La Marianne (which I play with an strong second beat) is classed as a waltz not a mazurka.

It's has some of the feel of the type of 3/2 hornpipe that has lots of quavers, which I thought made it typical of a Slängpolska, like Slängpolska efter Bysse-Kalle.But it seems there are dozen of variants of the polska form, so what do I know?

I have to say that Saul's polska felt more like a 3/2 hornpipe than a 3/4 tune to me. Is the music for a Scandinavian 'Polish' the same as a Polish mazurka? I thought I had the pulse of a mazurka worked out but seemingly not since finding out that La Marianne (which I play with an strong second beat) is classed as a waltz not a mazurka.

I have no idea of the distinctions to be honest! I don't really pay attention to time signatures, I just play tunes how they sound in a way I think will make them sound good...

I thought I had the pulse of a mazurka worked out but seemingly not since finding out that La Marianne (which I play with an strong second beat) is classed as a waltz not a mazurka.

It's useful to look up these dance forms on Wikipedia, as they often give an an example of the basic rhythm.That's how I found out why a minuet tends to be recognisable as such, more than some other 3/4 dance rhythm.That said, Polskas come in some many varieties that Wiki doesn't give an example for them, nor for slängpolskas.

Despite La Marianne having a strong second beat in bar 4, I'd say it has too few quavers for a mazurka, and no dotted quaver-semiquaver patterns). It also has two bars containing a single note, which is more characteristic of waltzes than of mazurkas. That's in the A music - the B music could be from a mazurka.To some extent, it depends on how you play it!

'Tunes you've just learnt'.... *only* just learnt!It has so many corners and about turns, it has been rested before another attempt at learning it. I hope it will stay and improve with age, and become more fluent, but it totally fulfils 'just learnt!'.